There was a big truck in the bucolic drive of the run down Victorian. That was slightly annoying to Mitzy. She supposed, being a listed property, other people could come see it now. But she had a mother hen attitude at the moment and wanted to cluck the weasel away from her nest. She sat in her Miata for a few minutes gathering her thoughts and prepping her reactions.
Mitzy caught sight of someone out of the corner of her eye.
She popped open the door of her car and climbed out.
Alonzo, though he knew who was getting out of the car, couldn’t keep himself from admiring the long legs that stepped from it. He took a deep, admiring breath as the legs led up to…ah. That wretched purple blazer. The blazer in all the ads, the blazer that kept him awake at nights—or was that gave him nightmares? Whichever. It was the blazer of stereotype, the blazer with the big shoulder pads that went with the bouffant hair. And right above the shoulder pads was a pretty, but angry, face.
“Good morning, Mitzy.” Alonzo forced himself to smile. The possibilities behind this coincidental meeting were not endless. She was probably the listing agent on the property. He was going to have to be nice.
“Mr. Miramontes,” Mitzy said. She decided territorial was the best way to act right now. Make it a foregone conclusion that this was her property. “How can I help you?”
“Please, call me Alonzo. And this is my sister, Carmella.” He indicated his sister who was peering into the front windows of the house.
Carmella was a statuesque brunette with hair piled on her head. Her jeans were tight and she was wearing heels. Mitzy decided not to analyze the relief she felt when he said sister. Though she suspected even if it was his sister she was probably also his type. Recognizing that for the very weird thought that it was, Mitzy tried to pull her mind back to the property.
“Carmella and I are interested in the property. Do you have some time to talk about it?” He leaned on the decrepit rail of the front porch, assuming nonchalance that none of them felt.
Mitzy squared her shoulders and stood tall. She was ready for conflict and not about to let her guard down to him—no matter how smoldering his eyes and deliciously thick and wavy his dark hair. The broad shoulders were—well—she wouldn’t consider his shoulders at the moment. She didn’t have time.
“That’s nice of you to help your sister. Carmella, I’m Mitzy Neuhaus. How are you?” She smiled at the sister. Taking the business out of the hands of Miramontes seemed the right first move.
“Mitzy Neuhaus? The Mitzy Neuhaus? I love you! You were fabulous on the radio with that awful Johnny. Have you ever thought about getting your own show? It would be incredible.”
Alonzo shuffled his feet and cleared his throat. Why did everyone who met Mitzy go into raptures like this? Ridiculous.
“I’m so glad this is your property, Mitzy. I’ve always wanted to meet you. What do you think of this house? It’s amazing right? But what’s your professional opinion?”
“It is a fantastic property, and really a steal right now.” Mitzy tried to skirt around telling an actual lie. “It needs quite a bit of work though. Are you looking to move soon? I know of a few really great deals that are move-in ready.”
“Oh no, I’m not moving. This is an investment.” Carmella smiled at her brother, her face full of gratitude.
“It’s quite a property to set up as a rental,” Mitzy said. “I don’t know if you could get enough in rent to take care of it properly. Not with all of this land.”
Carmella laughed warmly. “Oh, it won’t be a rental. It will be a business.”
Mitzy made herself smile at Alonzo. “This is a residential property.” She narrowed her eyes. “And I have an interested buyer already lined up.” All thoughts of skirting lies flew. This was her old money mansion, not a business investment for some Miramontes scheme.
Alonzo eyed her carefully. Mitzy wasn’t confident. She was mad. Something wasn’t entirely above board. He took a wild stab. “Residential, eh? It’s zoned residential? Even with that church on the corner? And, what is that? He craned his neck to stare down to the end of the long street. “Isn’t that an auto shop on the other end?”
“This is a family friendly street. Kids can ride bikes here. It’s a terrible idea to turn this house into a business.” Mitzy just barely kept herself from stamping her foot.
“Oh, but you’d like it. It’s going to be a bed and breakfast!” Carmella’s cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled.
Mitzy took a deep breath. She did not want to make this worse my crushing Carmella’s dream.
“You can’t deny that it is a great location and building for a bed and breakfast.” Alonzo walked over to Mitzy, and stood near her. He leaned close and said, “Isn’t it romantic?”
Mitzy almost slapped him. She took three long steps backwards.
“Do you have an offer on the property or not?” Alonzo asked, switching his tone to business neutral.
Mitzy paused. “There isn’t an offer as of yet.”
“Then we will fax you the papers immediately.” He almost turned to leave, when something on her face made him stop.
She chewed her bottom lip. She had to tell them.
“We should fax the papers to you, shouldn’t we?” he asked with a sneer.
“Well…” She hesitated.
“I think we are done here.” Alonzo walked purposefully to his pickup.
Carmella hurried after him.
They drove away, leaving Mitzy kicking herself for losing face. And possibly losing the house. The gala was coming quickly. There might still be time. She doubted, but she had to keep trying.
Alonzo tried to drive more carefully this time, even though he was mad. His neck was still sore from his recent accident, and he was in no mood to crash his pickup.
“Do you think we can still get the house? I mean, Mitzy is the best there is. I’m afraid if she doesn’t want us to have it, we won’t get it.” Carmella chewed on the green coffee stirrer from her to go cup.
“It will be fine.”
“Are you sure? I mean, she really is the best. If she thinks it’s a bad spot for a business, maybe it is a bad spot for a business. Who else would know if not her?”
“She is not the best. She just advertises a lot.” Alonzo gritted his teeth. He really felt like smashing something at the moment.
“Oh come on. I don’t know what your problem is. She is too the best. Everybody knows her. Everybody sings her jingle. When you need a new home, you can call Neuhaus, New Homes! What’s not to love? She’s got kitsch factor like nobody.”
“She’s not kitschy. She’s tasteless. She’s just…she’s just…annoying. She’s really annoying.” He braked hard at the light and regretted it as his head jerked forward.
“Calm down, big boy. She really gets your goat, doesn’t she? No one else has a word to say against her. I’d have thought you’d love her, after all, she’s a ‘born again’ like you.” She laughed.
“So now all Christians are supposed to love each other, huh?”
“That is kind of the point.” She laughed again and sipped her coffee.
He drove on in silence. Yes. It was true. It was kind of the point. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.
Well, it sort of did.
“Let’s get an offer on the Victorian this afternoon,” he said after some moments of silence.
“I think I’ll sleep on it. Never make a decision like this in less than twenty-four hours.”
He pulled into his sister’s driveway and let her out.
Yes, he’d have to work on being nicer to Mitzy if he wanted his family to recognize the Protestant thing he had going on. Not that he minded the Catholic Church he had grown up in, it just hadn’t clicked with him the way this one did. And it would never click with his family if they didn’t see him change.
He groaned. Why did this change have to start with that obnoxious girl?
Into every life eventually, a little laundry must fall. And that was how Mitzy w
as occupying herself when a most interesting fax came in. She couldn’t hear the fax coming in the office from across the thirty-five hundred square feet of her penthouse. Especially not with the television on. It was quite a bit later, the next morning in fact, when she popped into her home office with her coffee, and saw the fax.
A little less than twelve months earlier, Mitzy had had Sabrina submit an application to appear on House Hunters. It was one of the many ways she had hoped to fill the time during the economic slump. Actually, the application process itself was the way she had hoped to fill the time. She had very little hope that the show would actually come to town this year. Though if they did, she fully expected they would call on her as the local agent.
The fax was a formal letter, but had a personal note on the bottom. The letter said, generally speaking, that House Hunters would be filming in the Portland metro area in one month’s time and that they were excited to be showcasing such a vibrant community. The note on the bottom was what really mattered. It was from Curt, Mitzy’s one previous boyfriend—well—her one serious relationship at any rate. After things fizzled out he had remained friendly and then he had sort of disappeared. It was a nice note:
“Mitzy! I was totally amped to see your application! I’m insisting we work with you when we get to town. I’ll be calling on Monday. Oh, by the way, I’m a producer for House Hunters now, go figure! – Curt”
She and Curt had broken up mostly over her career. Curt had been a camera man, a really good one. But Portland isn’t known for its vibrant film and television industry. With her business thriving and her—Curt called it ‘retentive’—sense of responsibility to her staff, things between Curt and herself just couldn’t go anywhere. Make that, Mitzy wouldn’t go anywhere, but Curt had to.
In fact, Mitzy had known that Curt worked for the show. It was her business to know HGTV as well as any other aspect of the real estate world, but she hadn’t advertised the fact on her application. It seemed pointless. Ex-boyfriends aren’t notoriously great references.
Mitzy laid the paper back on the fax tray and added House Hunters to her list of things to do. It seemed odd all of a sudden that last week was the slowest week of her business life, and this week she suddenly had too much to do. Today was Wednesday. She had less than a week to prep for the gala, get a television career, and catch a thief. If all things scheduled well, House Hunters would help with her media goals but if not…well…she wouldn’t think about that right now. She had a dress in the closet, a fabulous proposal to First Things and a day to spend staking out the Victorian and hunting down Laurence Mills. The missing cash buyer came to mind. Probably nothing she could do about it at this point, but the Smythes deserved some kind of compassion right now, a phone call at the very least.
At the office, Ben was put on full time gala work. He was their liaison. He welcomed the break from monotony. He particularly enjoyed running around to the printers, whether or not he really had to, and seeing his work in production. He was out of the office, meeting with the boys at the print shop this particular morning.
Sabrina and Mitzy had the still office to themselves.
“I’ve been playing detective, boss,” Sabrina said, pulling out a yellow legal pad.
“Oh?” Mitzy, reading glasses perched on her nose, was engrossed in her emails. She longed to be at the Victorian, but was a stickler about her business relationships.
Sabrina cleared her throat. “My friend at the DMV is having a hard time tracking down Laurence Mills.”
“Excuse me?” Mitzy turned and gave Sabrina her full attention.
“Remember Ryan? We dated last year? He works at DMV still. I had him look up Laurence Mills.”
“He can do that?” Mitzy asked, quite surprised.
“Sure. Apparently Hippa laws don’t restrain the motor vehicle department employees.”
“But he couldn’t find anything?”
“Yes, but what he couldn’t find was rather telling. In our state registry there are Laurie Mills, Laura Mills, Larry Mills, Lorenzo Mills, Lorent Mills and Florence Mills, but no Laurence. And Larry, Lorenzo and Lorent, the males, didn’t even live in Portland, much less at our poor abused Victorian.”
“So, it’s a dead end.”
“Kind of, but we now know he doesn’t have a driver’s license. Or at least a valid one. According to the tax record the Baltimore house was his address for most of this year and if he drives he should have a local license by now. I think it would be cool if Laurence Mills was a false identity.”
“Very mature, Sabrina.” Mitzy rolled her eyes.
“Maybe it’s immature. But it’s also more interesting.”
“How would he buy a house with a fake identity?” Mitzy asked.
“You’re the real estate expert, you tell me.”
“He could use cash. If he didn’t have to close at a title company, it might not be that hard.” The lost cash buyer and their earlier hypothesis obviously came to mind.
“It could be possible.” Sabrina smiled, pleased with herself.
“If we happened to be dealing with a person that didn’t exist, how would we catch him?” Mitzy mused.
“We’d have to hunt him down all the same, I guess. I’d imagine if Laurence Mills wasn’t really Laurence Mills that he’d been acting like Laurence Mills all the same. So maybe we don’t change our method, we just add this tid-bit to what we know about him.”
“Not bad, Sabrina. I’ll keep this in mind. If we catch him and he isn’t really himself we have more ways to get him in trouble.” Mitzy grinned. She liked the idea of getting her kitchen thief in trouble.
“I’m going to go hang out around the house. Maybe visit Debbie at home, drink some tea and stare out her windows. I’d like to see if there are any comings or goings at the property,” Mitzy said.
“You have a very nice tenant to let you drop by like that.”
“I’m a lucky woman.”
The gala was just two days away and Mitzy wanted to be secure on the status of the house before she found the perfect buyer—which was the whole goal of the gala after all.
It was a quiet visit. Debbie put on a pot of coffee and the two women stared out the window for hours on end, noting only one black pickup truck slow down as it passed the driveway. Was Laurence driving without a valid license and so adding to potential charges against him? Or was it just a curious person looking at the impressive old house? Mitzy noted the license plate number just the same. They could always run the numbers by the Old Boyfriend at the DMV.
The Tiffany Center was an art deco building in the center of the downtown business district. It stood only five stories tall, but it was set up on the hill and made the most of what view it could manage. Through certain windows all you saw was the bustle of business in neighboring high rise buildings. The windows on the opposite side had peak-a-boo views of the river that reflected the sparkling lights of the multitude of cars commuting home across the bridges.
The interior had a deep, cozy feeling, despite the soaring ceilings and a twenty-five hundred person room capacity. The floors gleamed golden, the dais was set off by luxurious red velvet curtains.
A big band, with polished trumpets dancing and men in tail coats played on a stage set off to the side. The band leader was a dead ringer for Harry Connick Jr. and Mitzy had to look three times before she was sure it wasn’t really him.
The room was filled with round tables. Each table was hosted by a contributor who either sold their seats for donations that covered the cost or invited potential donors to sit with them. Each table represented at least five thousand dollars, but potentially quite a bit more.
The prominent Dinner with Degas sign was flanked by the red velvet curtains. Chalk ballerinas stretched out their sketched legs behind the words. Hanging beneath that sign was Mitzy’s.
The Neuhaus sign was a deep purple, almost eggplant, that complemented the red velvet curtain.
Her business name was a subtle, location inspired font�
�one might say Old Broadway or New York, New York writing. It said simply: Neuhaus New Homes Welcomes you to Dinner with Degas.
Each table had a similar sentiment written on coasters, cocktail napkins and a table tent. She had no idea how the printers had gotten all of that made in time, but she was very pleased with the effect it created. Her signage fit well in this posh setting.
For quite a while, she just stood back by a far table, admired the advertising and felt a bit overwhelmed by the luxury of it all. She knew it was going to be a gala affair, but she hadn’t imagined how impressed she’d be by it.
Mitzy was wearing a classic little black dress. It was the ‘When in Doubt’ option. Her personal dresser at Saks was confident it was the correct choice. It was strapless, and draped to her feet, with a bit of a Roman flair. So maybe it wasn’t the ‘little’ black dress. But despite its length there wasn’t much to it and she felt like a million dollars.
She had seen the stylist at Saks as well, just to pull her look together. They had tamed her riotous curls—a bit—and pulled them softly back at her neck. Stray curls, which she hadn’t been allowed to mousse as usual, played around her face, giving her an altogether younger look than she had had in years.
Sabrina didn’t have the same budget Mitzy had and wasn’t willing to expense her look. However she had pulled herself together well enough in a simple, dark blue tea length number with a petticoat under and cap sleeves. Standing next to the Mitzy Neuhaus she looked exactly like what she was: a personal assistant and a poor substitute for a date. The impression she gave off, however, was of youth and humor and charm. In fact, when not standing beside her boss she was probably the prettiest and most comfortable of all the women in the room.
The low lights, candles on the tables, swinging big band music, and oversized reprints of Degas’ favorite ballerinas made the two women feel like they had entered a wonderland. But only a few more moments passed before Howard Ruche, Director of Development for The Arts Council of Portland, which managed the fundraising side of the museum, found them.
Foreclosed: A Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery (A Mitzy Neuhaus Mystery, a Cozy Christian Collection) Page 6